Is there another name for the Homasote product? I know Homasote is a brand, but does someone else make a like product? Also, do you use it to cover all of your layout, or are you using it just under roadbed? I checked their website, and the major retailers near me aren’t listed. Approximate price?
Thanks for the help!!
Tim
Some people just know it as train board.
I checked with The Home Depot, and the Lowe’s store nearby, and neither one carries it or knows what I am talking about.
Do you have a Menard’s nearby? My local menards carries the Homasote. But they just started carrying it a short time ago.
John
Did you check their web site.
Here is the link to their dealer locations
http://www.homasote.com/where.html
I used this to find a place close to me. Last time I bought it was about $20 a sheet or so.
Tim
Tell your Home Depot that the Home Depot’s in South Plainfield, NJ and Dover, NJ both sell it. At least they used to. Its pretty common stuff. Maybe Home Depot is now carrying a “like” product , by another name.
Jim
Jim,
That is why I asked if anyone knows of a different, possibly generic, name for the product. I don’t even know what it looks like, so I wouldn’t know it if I saw it. From their websites description, it almost sounds like that soft reinforcement that came behind aluminum siding. Is it thick (1/2"-3/4"), brown, and easy to snap off a piece by hand?
clinchvalley, is that homasote between the track and plywood in your construction photos?
Tim
Tim
Sorry, man. I asked you the question that you asked in your post. I’ve lost alot of brain cells through the years.
I live right near a Home Depot and I swing by this afternoon some time, and post here around 5:00 eastern time. I always need stuff there (no more local hardware store).
Isn’t that foam behind siding? This is a processed wood product, actually processed down to look like a paper product. It is heavy, but soft enough for track nails and stuff.
I’ll be back from Home Depot at 5
Jim
Hey Tim
Dover NJ Home Depot had plenty of it … 1/2 X 4 X 8 Homasote, @ $16.75
It was in the insulation department, not with the plywood and other boards. It seems heavy to me for weather insulation, maybe its a sound deading board. I wouldn’t know.
Off the Home Depot label … “Prime Source 123024
Item B 123-024”
and the product id numbers off the bar code … 0 98056 11005 7
Jim
btw…I read your profile because I was going to email you. I’m 46, two kids 12 and 15, dog, 2002 F-250 SD Crew Cab, 1979 F-150, also enjoy armor models, fishing (plus hunting), snowmobiling (plus atv’ing). The layout I’m building is also a “typical” thing (Conrail), its not my life. I wish you lived near by, I could use a buddy in my new neighborhood. I’m the only rift-raft in the area.
Thanks for the info, Jim. I am an old guy (46) and aluminum siding used to come with this fibrous paper/cardboard stuff behind it. It would kind of shred or crumble at the edges when it was bent and broken. I will look again at H D and see.
Thanks!!
Tim
Tim,
Try using the Search the forums … window in the header, using Homosote as the search term. If memory serves, (it doesn’t always !), there was a generic name mentioned in an earlier thread. If you find it, please post it in this thread to help the next person.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
For 30 years I’ve wondered what you Americans call Homasote. In Australia we have what I perceive to be a similar product called Caneite, made I understand from compressed sugar cane stalks left over from the extraction process. Caneite used to be used for pin boards and may still be, but hese days thjey seem to either cover the raw white finised caneite with fabric to pretty it up or are using some other type of sub material to hold drawing pins.It did get used for insulation a bit before modern foil type stuff and spun fibre mats became the norm. Our caneite is only moderately dense and is about 12.7mm(1/2") thick. It does hold pins, but I would say, only moderately well for tracklaying expectations.
When you saw it, it makes a darn mess with light fine sawdust/fibre stuff going everywhere it wants to. Does this sound like Homasote or am I barking up the wrong tree ?
What other track sub base do folk use ? Is homasote flexible to enable it to flex around curves ? Caneite sure does not like to do this.
Do you guys have a separate product that sounds more like caneite ? Maybe you call it pinboard (for use on bulletin boards ) ??
COX lumber-- 25 $ a sheet
Homasote is recycled, compressed paper. I think whether or not it is sold in your local Home Depot or Lowe’s, etc., depends on local fire code. Because it is paper, it is flammable and not allowed in new construction in most states. The only place I have seen it used out here in Arizona is for the expansion strips in sidewalks.
I have heard Homasote refered to as “pressed board” on ocassion, if that helps for a generic name. In my area, Buffalo, NY, some of the Home Depot’s carry it and others don’t. Kinda weird I thought. And even at the HD that does have it, not all of the employees know what I was talking about.
I checked with some smaller lumber yards in the area and most of them stock it. If you’re still having trouble locating it, try the smaller guys, chances are they have it, and they will know what you are talking about.
And Geoff, the product you describe does sound similar. The know our product is made of pressed, recycled paper as opposed to cane material. And generally, Homasote holds small track nails very well.
Homasote generally does not crumble. If you score it heavily with a knife, you can break it down a line. It doesn’t do what I would call “bend”; it sags a bit and you can bend it up a reasonable amount to start a grade.
It’s intended as a sound insulation.
If you want bendable Homasote, try Homabed; it’s regular in thickness, holds spikes well, and installs just like cork roadbed:
At our Menard’s in Fargo, we can only get it in 2’X4’ sheets. They’re about $7-8 each. I use the homasote on top of 3/4" plywood and I have no sagging, no problems with track alignment, and a good sound muffling factor. It’s solid, and a little heavy, but it’s reliable.
That’s how they used to sell it at our Menards, but in the past year they started carrying full 4x8 sheets for around $15-16. Prior to that, there was only one local lumberyard that would carry a few sheets and I had heard their price was up around $25!
Wow–neither Home Depot nor Lowes in southern California carry Homasote. I get mine from the local lumber yard at around $25 for a 4’X8’ sheet.